Solar-powered bird feeder garden radio

[fujifrontier]

Haha.

I had a wild hair and thought it would be an absolutely hilarious idea to put a downward-firing speaker in the lid of a bird feeder connected to the guts of a cheapie AM radio; I had a small AM transmitter that broadcasts at 1610 which I beam out music (covers the whole house) from. This was partly due to the outrageous (to me) costs of garden/outdoor speakers (Bose, $500 a pair).

The only complication is... I want the thing to be solar powered. Obviously I know its not going to run 24-7, I kind of wanted it to "go to sleep" at night.

I already have two 6v panels which quite effectively power a radio.

My problem is, I want a "battery backup" to serve as backup for when the sun gets shy and hides behind a cloud; and for perhaps a few hours in the evening until the battery dies.

What kind of circuit would I need to have the radio operate off the panel and charge the battery normally; but switch to battery when there's no sun?

Any ideas? Anyone willing to make one for me? The cheapo panels I have only work when the sun is full-out blasting on them. :D

[Brach]

I think the circuit you need would take some basic engineering knowlege that one can find in one of the Radio Shack experiment, etc. books. It would take too much of my brains ability to even try thinking that out.

One more thing... where exactly was this wild hair located?

[gearhound]

Might be funnier in an electric bug zapper.....like special effects at a Pink Floyd concert.

Steve

[fujifrontier]

Well yousee, the original idea was to use the first bird feeder attached:

I was going to glue one of those baby Bose drivers that go in the 901s, a forum member had sent me one a long while back, into the lid of the feeder. Unfortunately i can't find it, so I just dumped the guts into the feeder. Cheap dollarstore radio doesn't pickup te correct frequency, it gets a lot of interference. I cut off the "bird ledges" and the centre support so the radio guts can fit in it, and I laid the solar panel on one side. Doesn't work too well, looks sloppy.

The second feeder is what I ideally wanted to use, but no one sells them in town so I'm waiting for it to arrive. It's much bigger than the original green roof gazebo one; the gazebo one is about the size of a happymeal box.

I had bought some of those stupid solar LED garden path lights, but they cut off the LED when they see light; to charge the battery. I wanted constant solar operation + charging the batt and ONLY switching to batt again, when cloudy or dark, so the radio would work in perpetuity.

The wild hair? :p I dunno where i was, I just found it one day. I even glued photo printouts of birdseed to the inside of the greenroof gazebo feeder to confuse the birds. Haha.

[Switchblade]

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[fsjonsey]

http://jonsey.blogdns.org/img/89_1.JPG
Why not do it in reverse, with one of those little FM "spy bugs" in the feeder, so you could listen to bird sounds in the house, on any FM radio.

[toxcrusadr]

I have some solar garden lights that have two AA rechargeables in them. they work that way, charge when the sun is out, work off batts till they go dead in the early morning. There is almost nothing to the circuit. I have some on the bench for battery replacement, I could look at one for you.

[fujifrontier]

Thanks. They were what I wanted to use but they'd cut power as soon as the sun came out.